Round Robin Finale part 1

In Jan/Feb last year the quilt group I belong to, The Gumnut Quilters, decided to start Round Robin quilts.  Of course I have absolutely no idea whose brilliant idea it was but there were times throughout the year that we all thought we had bitten off more than we could chew and wondered what on earth we had gotten ourselves into!  

Eleven brave souls thought they had time to commit to the project, little did they know!  Each person started with a 12 1/2" block of their choosing.  Each block was put into a bag with any suggested fabrics or instructions and requests - such as no blacks please, or homespuns only, or whatever.  Once we began we never again saw our own developing quilt top until today!  Each quilt group meetings if a RR quilt was there, the owner was sent from the room while everyone else admired the developments in hushed tones.  Often girls would get together away from the group to help with the work on a border, particularly towards to end when borders started to get rather big and heavy.  The largest quilt ended up around 90" square and I think mine is the smallest - a good single bed size.  

As we go around there is no point in me telling what everyone did to each quilt but I might as well point out what I did to each one.

So, let's start the tour!  

First up Cynthia's French General extravaganza.

My contribution to this one was the border with the fussy cut hexagons 

 and the corner stones

Let me make myself clear - I do not do hand stitching because of arthritis but these quilts were worth the struggle but Cynthia was rather taken aback at me hand stitching though!

Next came Sharon's.  She loves bows and this bow is actually off a piece of salvaged curtain material that Glenys, another Gumnut had given her.  

I did the second row of floating squares.

I had never done them before so I learned a new skill.......

slowly!   Luckily this quilt gave me lots of practice!

This one is Glenys - just love these clear colours!

This was such a pretty quilt to work on.   Love that white background.

 
To Glenys' I added the elongated half circles in homespuns to tone in with the squares that Debbie had done before me.  With all these quilts, whilst they were still a manageable size, I wanted to add something special, more than a simple strip of fabric if I could so i had to come up with something to follow a pieced border that wasn't too busy.  I place a rectangle of homespun on a rectangle of very thin interfacing and sewed my shape which I had marked on with pencil.  Each petal was actually an elongated oval at that stage.  Once I had sewn around the shape  with a really small stitch I slit the interfacing and turned the oval right side out and pressed the living daylights out of it to make sure you couldn't see the interfacing at all and then cut them in half and used on end on each square.  

Glenys is such a softie that she teared up when she saw hers.  Don't blame her it is lovely!

Debbie started with bowls in Kaffe fabrics.  

I was the first to add a border to Debbie's and went for a split border. 

Lyn surprised us all i think by choosing Kaffe fabrics for her lovely star block.  

That resulted in a beautiful bright quilt.  My contribution to this was that simple orange floral border - no piecing but I really thought the quilt needed another simple border at that point and I really loved the colour in the orange fabric and it seemed just right.

Miss Irene went for an Amish inspired homespun only centre square.  

One of the other Gumnuts, Cynthia and I decided to collaborate and complete the final border together as it was already such a big quilt.  We spent a whole day piecing the multi-coloured piano keys around the outside - there might only be two repeat of colour in each side of the quilt.  Amazing to think we had some many homespuns in the groups stash, mine and Cynthia's!  A little scary too maybe!

So that is six out of the eleven Round Robin Quilt Tops.  Now if you are not bored I will be back tomorrow night to show you the remaining five, including mine!

Till next time...............happy stitching!